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Meet the Director

Loretta E. Haddy, PhD, MS, MA has been the State Epidemiologist since 1982 and she is the first director for the Office of Epidemiology and Prevention Services (OEPS) since its inception in April 2009.

As director, she provides leadership and oversight of six divisions and one program in addition to serving as the principle investigator for several federal grants. This includes: Immunization, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Cancer Epidemiology, Epidemiologic Informatics and Evaluation, Tuberculosis Elimination, Hemophilia, and STD, HIV and Hepatitis.

Dr. Haddy completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1986. She continues to be responsible for the state's infectious disease surveillance system (West Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System) and collaborates with the Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology for disease outbreak investigations. Dr. Haddy developed the WV Reportable Disease Protocol Manual.

She co-authored West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources' Hepatitis B Control Clinical Services Policy 3220 in 1986 and the revised version in 1993. She wrote and amended several sections of the West Virginia Public Health Code, Chapter 16 and associated Legislative Rules to support operations of these divisions. She has had several articles published in peer review journals and the CDC’s MMWR related to research and public health programs.

In addition, Dr. Haddy created and oversees distribution of the WV public health newsletter called the Epi-Log. Her assignments have included working with communicable disease control experts for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and state of West Virginia in collaboration with local health departments, health care providers and facilities. Dr. Haddy served as director of the Division of Surveillance and Disease Control dating back to 1987 before the division evolved into the Office of Epidemiology and Prevention Services for the Bureau for Public Health.

In 2009, Dr. Haddy was inducted into the West Virginia Public Health Hall of Fame. She was also the first recipient of the WVPHA Lab - Epi Award in 2008 for outstanding public service.

Working together with more than 85 employees under her leadership, Dr. Haddy continues to work to help achieve the OEPS mission of tracking the occurrence of diseases, providing preventive interventions, and educating the public on protecting themselves from diseases.